Interview: Brian Pillman Jr. on Pillman Gun Segment, Following in His Father’s Footsteps, More

Brian Pillman Jr. was interviewed by Chris Van Vliet at MLW Fusion Live in Miami, FL last night.

Brian talks about why he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, training with Lance Storm, which wrestlers inspire him and being there during his father’s infamous gun segment.

What it was like being in the house during the infamous “Pillman’s Got a Gun” segment:
“I remember being there. I was in the house and the crew guys were like ‘hey everybody, stay upstairs’ and me and my little sister are freaking out, Stone Cold is circling the building and tying to find a way in and then all of sudden we hear the glass break and the rest is history. Seeing it on TV and that pure emotion, that pure anger of someone invading your home. What would you do? Of course you would pull out of gun, right? It’s natural, pure, organic stuff.”

When people say he looks just like his father:
“I hear it all the time and it’s really funny because most people look just like their dads. I guess it comes with the mullet as well. I’m trying to throw back to the vintage style but also as my trainer told me, it’s a functional decision because it keeps the hair out of your eyes.”

Why he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a pro wrestler:
“I felt like I was a little bit betrayed by wrestling. My mother told me that it killed my father. She’s say ‘oh wrestling killed your father and the lifestyle is too hard. You’ll never be able to do it.’ And I figured, I wasn’t in the NFL and I wasn’t a pro Judo master like him, so maybe I can’t do wrestling. And then I learned it’s more than that, it’s a lot more than that. Once I started doing yoga, getting in the gym, really putting on some weight and looking great I started to realize that I can do this. I was looking at the other guys in the business and comparing myself to them visually, physically and athletically and I thought I’d be in the upper tier here.”

He doesn’t have many memories of his father:
“I have very few memories. If you do your research you’ll find that the human memory starts to form around 4-years old and that’s when he passed away. I was 4-years old in 1997,I had just turned 5 in September and he passed in October. And you have to factor in that he was always on the road so the times that I did see him were few and far between. I do remember his voice, the very raspy voice and they had to bolt a cast to his leg so he wouldn’t work on it. He would get surgery then he would re-injure his leg over and over because he just didn’t give a damn. So I remember seeing legit bolts like screwed into his leg and I thought how gruesome was that? But he’s a tough son of a gun.”

On being trained by Lance Storm:
“I learned a ton from him and a lot about the history of the business as well because as we all know that’s an equally important part of our business.”

The wrestlers that he looks up to:
“I always say Chris Jericho because I’ve always just leveled with him. I’m not saying that I’m trying to be him, but I’m just very similar to him with that larger than life and rock star persona. You don’t even have to look at the moves, forget the lionsault forget the dropkicks. As soon as he walks through the curtain he’s Chris Jericho. I’ve always enjoyed that and the charisma. When it comes to intensity, I’ve always respected Chris Benoit. I’ve never seen a moment in Benoit or Guerrero where it looked fake, it always looked real because they believed in themselves and they believed who they were and everything they did.”